and it screams
by Ellarose C
Summary: He's beyond brilliant, dazzling, blinding, he's a star, a real one, and he can't turn it off. He burns.


{A/N: My challenge to you is to guess the character. Leave your thoughts in a review, and I'll tell you how close you are. (It can be specific, I don't mind.) This is based on 64damn_prompts on livejournal.}

* * *

1. 2 a.m.  
He watched the late night news, filled with the blood and gore that couldn't be shown to the sun with the girls gone wild and sex lines commercials, and he smiled.

2. metaphor  
Extended, he was out of many and made of many; no one soul was created to handle this extension without cracking. (He is no exception).

3. sky  
Some called his eyes the sky in a bottle. He thinks of summertime and chlorine instead.

4. lost scene  
More and more he's told that curiosity killed the cat. He keeps telling them that satisfaction brought it back. No one remembers that.

5. degrees  
They notices changes in inches, in small moments that add up until he's far too far to be anything but steel boned and batshit for brains, and all they can do is cower.

6. seize the day  
He's not always like this. On Tuesdays he is genuine and different, enough.

7. opposite  
The same ice and fire runs in their fingers as they grin and stare and calculate, smiling (they're too much alike to do anything but pain).

8. passions run  
"I really like the stars," he grins through a starshined telescope. The astrologist's son nods, yawns and teaches.

9. connection  
He's not the son of a son of a sailor, but he's pretty damned close, that has to count for something, doesn't it?

10. lull and storm  
He was predictable in his impossible dreams. (The only real question was how far.)

11. animal  
"What is that?" he choked. He looked up, crouched in the dirt behind the house, a bloody stick in his hand. "Dead." He smiled like a prize.

12. children  
They change, they say. He really didn't.

13. we all float on  
(He could be normal, oh so close, he thinks) He feels it in him and _screams_

14. chess  
Watching, he wondered how such an underhand manipulator could prefer checkers.

15. duty  
A call to be answered, of course, no matter how scared they are of how he enjoys, thrills in it. It's not natural.

16. rip  
He mends quickly, so much so he doesn't notice anymore. He'll mend, he knows it will pass, he prays.

17. missing time  
His heart isn't (empty), it's buried and burning to a simmer.

18. crest  
He only knows chivalry because of his church, of which there are many. Paper and glue shields work better than any steel.

19. itch  
Most of the time it lays in the back of his mind on a bed of poison ivy, whispering in his sleep.

20. explode  
It's inevitable. He's a pipe dream, a pipe bomb. Same difference.

21. rise  
There can only be one, cruel. 'Tis nature, y'know.

22. crumble  
Rubble sifts through fingers. It's the Pearl Harbor of guerilla warfare, only this time he doesn't have an opponent. He sobs at the thought, ignoring the debris.

23. range  
Romantic Westerns are oxymorons and paradoxes. He calls them jokes.

24. fight/flight  
Every time he promises himself he won't retreat. He's never broken that.

25. acid  
Stains always have stories; doubly so for scars.

26. color  
He's mostly green, not red or blue or gold. No one remembers that.

27. give  
He takes the refuse and turns it into power. It's like lemonade.

28. needle  
He shouldn't be terrified, but he's reminded of asylums and curls up for days, comfortless.

29. locks  
He likes them.

30. slope  
He doesn't know how it came to this, but he can't stop them as the two bombers fly away. He doesn't know if he would if he could. Is that scary?

31. correspondence  
Maybe the ocean's the cause. But what about his brother?

32. linger  
Sights don't stay, but scents do. It's why he leaves the noses.

33. charm  
Bizarre, how far a smile gets him.

34. roads  
He likes to think they're his nerves. (They're really his capillaries, tiny and thrumming and waiting)

35. hunger  
He's not starving, but he's addicted.

36. reciprocity  
I gave you my heart, bleeding and sore. Will you give me my freedom?

37. kind  
'Forsake me,' he whispers, 'it's for the best.'

38. fruity  
It's red, but it reminds him of grape soda.

39. half-life  
There's a reason he has the most. He can relate to the uranium like no one else (he thinks).

40. comedy of errors  
(Another one, sigh) He barely notices the movie beyond the body. He never imagined.

41. tragedy  
It varies back, flips forth. He screams.

42. hope is the thing with feathers  
His has scales and calls to a leather heart.

43. empire  
He's never called that. The word died over two hundred years ago, (at least to him).

44. turpentine kisses and mistaken blows  
With him, he can pretend. It's almost enough.

45. rings  
He holds his ears as he runs away so he can't hear his own laughter; he dislikes this side. It's most of him.

46. dust  
It's his other half, dry as the famous cow skulls, that really keeps him grounded. It breathes.

47. every you, every me  
There are so many versions of him that the world holds her breath, desperate for the right one to wake up that morning. There seems to be one per day.

48. project  
It's personal, he says. He slides the garage door and something screeches, it's metallic. It must be the door.

49. adore  
They find they can't help it any more than they can help him.

50. murmur  
The whispers frighten. Some thrill.

51. above  
He trusts into him, Rough and slow. They have all the time they want.

52. below  
He wants to save, oh, he wants to save him, lovely, with soft and down but he doesn't have the angle. He falls.

53. incalculable  
(Cold, beautiful, vibrant, energetic) Definitions vary, but this never changes.

54. wire  
Barbs cut into him as much as the other, blood brothers now like they never were. He slacks off; reluctance.

55. landslide  
What is devastating for others barely touches him. There is no vice versa.

56. the beginning is the end is the beginning  
He knows it's vicious, having the surety of Death and the reckless of Life, but it is home.

57. door  
he never knocks, he barges

58. enemy gate  
Too often, he goes to others, they never comes to him. (Maybe that's why he's lonely.)

59. stone  
Even granite bows to dynamite.

60. bright  
He's beyond brilliant, dazzling, blinding, he's a star, a real one, and he can't turn it off. He burns.

61. stories  
Fuck what they say. He knows the fireside words and crusted books hold more power than him.

62. chime  
He can't stand the silence, because it tells him what he is and it doesn't pull punches.

63. laugh  
(Crazy secretary, it's called. No one asks questions. No one dares.)

64. hold

It's obvious now. Every bit is intentional.


End file.
